Stormed Fortress (36 page)

Far overhead, a circling speck untouched by the reek and the slaughter, a lone eagle folded its wings and vanished.

* * *

The appalling shock of a spinning descent dropped away into
nothing.
The mind reeled, disembodied. Then the pine-scented greenery of Selkwood returned with a wrenching rush. Stunned breathing resumed. Shocked nerves recoiled as the unmoored spirit snapped back into cognizant flesh.

Kyrialt shuddered. His senses felt painfully magnified. Sound hurt and sight stung, so much colour and noise, as he swayed on his feet. When his spinning head cleared, he noted the renegade Sorcerer,
still present.

Davien remained standing, arms folded, his flamboyant dress like a shout against the undisturbed forest. He watched the crown prince at his feet through unblinking, relentless black eyes.

There, the moment hung, burning. Shand
'
s guarding liegeman rejected the reflex to unsheathe his sword. No fight could prevail, here. Davien
'
s errant interests were too deep to fathom, and his motives, unimaginably perilous. Kyrialt was not given the opening to challenge. At his feet, his prince had emerged from the scrying, utterly shattered from peace.

Arithon
'
s outcry was stifled, just barely, his muffling palms locked over his lips as he choked. His skin had gone bloodless. Tortured eyes were pinched shut, while the tears he could not repress welled and spilled through his lashes.

Kyrialt dropped to his knees in blind shock.
'
Your Grace!
'

He reached out, afraid. Would have braced up his liege
'
s bowed shoulders, had his touch not been rammed aside by Davien.

'
He
'
s seen everything you did, but opened through mage-sight.
'
The Sorcerer knelt himself. He captured Arithon
'
s wrists.
'
I am here! Let me help.
'

As though no incensed liegeman scrambled to rally, murderous with outrage beside him, the Sorcerer stayed riveted.
'
Arithon.
'

Rathain
'
s prince hung on, his face pressed behind his clenched fingers.

Davien laid his brow against Arithon
'
s untidy black hair.
'
I
'
tishealdient,
Teir
'
s
'
Ffalenn.
Blessed peace.
You heard the outspoken chord laid into Alestron
'
s white stone by the grace of the Ilitharis Paravian wardings?
'

A shudder raked the overstrung frame he supported.
'
That.
'

While Kyrialt watched, distressed, Arithon forced his stopped lungs into motion. He husked,
'
More.
'

Davien murmured in Paravian. If he had been sharply commanding before, now his tone held melting compassion.

Arithon shivered. He tried to move, to reject, but could not recover the will to stay private. Contained by an embrace too tender to break, he let go. His shuttered hands moved. Green eyes flicked open and let in the sight of the Sorcerer
'
s face.

Kyrialt lost his wind; averted his sight, but not fast enough. The suffering clarity had been unmasked: pain and pity exposed beyond even a Fellowship Sorcerer
'
s redress.

'
Ath have mercy,
'
Arithon whispered, bereft.
'
My brother. I saw how he
'
s -
'

As language failed him, the Sorcerer did not: the swift weave of his spell-craft unfolded and dropped the Teir
'
s
'
Ffalenn into sleep. As Kyrialt moved, Davien shook his head.

'
No. Let me.
'
His deft hands gathered the prince
'
s limp form, then bundled him under the sable cloak that still mantled his shoulders. The Sorcerer arose as though his burden posed less inconvenience than a sick child.
'
Where are his Grace
'
s quarters? Gather his things. I will take him.
'

'
Was this necessary?
'
Kyrialt snapped, on edge for the affront to his liege
'
s dignity.

Davien glanced sidewards.
'
Would I trifle? Your prince can assimilate what he
'
s learned with less trauma through his initiate use of the dream-state.
'

Rather than test the Sorcerer
'
s censure, Kyrialt retrieved the dropped awl. He scooped up the lacing and unfinished strap leather, in haste to keep pace with a creature whose reputation frightened him beyond sense.
'
If you knew that his Grace would suffer this way, why did you come here to bedevil him?
'

'
Is your loyalty true enough to find out?
'
Davien turned his back and strode directly toward the scout
'
s tent appointed to Arithon. As the flustered liegeman stayed in flanking step, the Sorcerer said quickly,
'
Don
'
t try to speak here! Not if you don
'
t like unwarranted notice, since I won
'
t respond to anyone
'
s bothersome questions.
'

They passed the s
'
Taleyn lodge tent, where no sharp-eyed scout raised the alarm. Bore on across the central encampment, where two younger women scraping raw hides failed to look up, as Davien
'
s moving shadow flicked over them. No laughing children broke off from their play. The elderly man who heated pine resin for torches said nothing. Another, who split grouse feathers to fletch damaged arrows, kept on telling jokes to a neighbour, as though no untoward apparition circled the cookfire or passed in front of him.

Kyrialt followed. Jaw clenched, he bore uncivil witness as his father
'
s security was invaded with high-handed effrontery.

Davien paid no mind. Whatever dire warding allowed him to pass, even the seer-gifted hunters who read flux lines did not notice his passage. Unerring, the Sorcerer ducked into the guest tent, with the clan liegeman stalking behind.

The door flap slapped shut, leaving gloom. If Kyrialt bristled, thrown back on scout
'
s instincts, the darkness afforded the Sorcerer no inconvenience.

Davien flipped back his mantle and laid Arithon down on the pine-stuffed pallet.
'
Your Grace,
'
he pronounced, as respectful, his touch straightened out rumbled limbs and arranged the pillow.
'
I will not leave your side until you can rest without reliving the carnage through nightmares.
'
Though his unconscious charge seemed unfit to be listening, Davien finished off with a tart remonstrance.
'
One thing further, I don
'
t fancy repeating myself.
'

He unpinned his rich mantle, that once had been gifted and left, overlooked in the leave-taking from Feylind
'
s brig. The jet cloth tumbled over the motionless prince. Davien smoothed the fine wool, with its pearl satin lining and exceptional silver embroidery. Then he dragged up a hassock and perched with intent to honour his promise.

The liegeman who witnessed was left at a loss. Aware of the Sorcerer
'
s black eyes upon him, bright with irony and obtuse humour, Kyrialt set Arithon
'
s unfinished handiwork down on the empty trestle. If every protective line of his carriage screamed to stay standing at sword
'
s reach, he had the courage not to act foolishly. Kyrialt dragged out the pine bench. He sat. Leashed his riled nerves through a quiet that pricked like a knife
'
s point.

Davien chose to relent in due course.
'
I will say what should be put in words only once, to spare Arithon
'
s need to explain himself. He thought to leave for Alestron in ten days. My lesson has shown him, by graphic example, that he is ill prepared to support the experience.
'

Kyrialt released a pent breath.
'
What occurred in the King
'
s Glade has laid him wide open. Our healer can
'
t help. She says he
'
s not ailing. Yet at times, his Grace can
'
t bear the sound of his own voice. He won
'
t touch the strings of his lyranthe.
'

'
That acute state of sensitivity will pass.
'
Davien folded his artisan
'
s hands. Under spilled light from a tear in the canvas, his sculpted knuckles wore the spark of a trefoil ring, silver inset with citrine.
'
You must understand. To break Desh-thiere
'
s curse, your liege extended himself to the verge of dissolution. He carried the scourge of the geas,
self-contained,
and went far enough to surrender himself to the mysteries. Throughout, he had to stay in command. Fully conscious, he held what could never be balanced, until the interlocked layers of his aura refined and all but sheared away. He did not die, because he willed to live, free. The healing he asked for respun his whole pattern, set under exalted influence. The gift of the Athlien Paravians will not fail him.
He is still himself.
Yet he needs to discover his natural balance. He battled the Mistwraith
'
s drive for so long, he can scarcely recognize his own spirit. Despite what he presumed, now he knows: he is not ready to withstand what awaits on the field at Alestron.
'

Kyrialt frowned. The Paravian warding set in the old wall, can you understand what it did to him? Ilitharis would not work in disharmony. What note could Arithon hear that was damaging?
'

Against waiting stillness, perhaps reluctant, Davien decided to answer.
'
He heard joy.
'

Unbidden, Kyrialt recalled the sheer
force
that had seized and turned the wild fires of Lysaer
'
s assault. Before a truth that demolished resistance, his naked intellect faltered.
All of his presupposed thoughts lay in error!
Wrenched into humility, he shivered.
'
I see that I lack the experience upon which to base understanding.
'

Profound silence answered, conclusion suspended. Where wisdom was lacking, courage remained. Kyrialt dared. He tested the Sorcerer, whose name walked hand in glove with contention, and whose ascetic, intelligent features showed nothing at all in deep shadow.
'
You
'
ve implied something other than time may be needed?
'

Davien
'
s smile was sudden and bright.
'
You are worthy enough not to make a mistake. Yes, there is more. The
s
'
Ilessid
still suffers. No recourse exists, yet. Desh-thiere
'
s geas still grips Lysaer in wilful blindness. All of his choices are clouded. That madness can
'
t help but turn for the worse if Arithon comes into close contact. The half-brother will strive to murder his nemesis. To survive unscathed, your Master of Shadow may require Dakar
'
s help, or Elaira
'
s assistance to shield him.
'

Now Kyrialt did use the striker to brighten the tallow dip, the trembling move in defiance of the Sorcerer
'
s piercing regard. "Then stop him,
'
he pleaded.
'
Let his Grace never enter the s
'
Brydion citadel. As his sworn protector, for the honour due him by this realm, I will have the Teir
'
sTaleyn, Lord Erlien, take action to back your decision.
'

'
You
can all try, and fail.
'
Davien seemed amused.
'
Be sure this prince will reject every effort to override his free will.
'
An impatient gesture foreran the venom drilled through the last line.
'
Dharkaron Avenge! Did you actually think I arranged today
'
s scrying merely for petty cruelty?
'